Councilwoman Emily Jabbour

Emily (Ball) Jabbour, recently elected on November 7, 2017 to the Hoboken City Council, was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in the Boston suburb of Wellesley. She graduated from Boston College in 2003 with a B.A. in Psychology and was an active member of the service learning program, which led her to apply for a one year position with AmeriCorps*VISTA with the Massachusetts Campus Compact. Placed at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, MA, Emily ran their service learning program and helped establish the Molly Bish Institute for Child Health and Safety.

Emily then moved to New York City in the fall of 2004 to start a Master’s Degree in Social Work at Columbia University in the Social Welfare Policy track. Emily also completed a Law Minor and was Vice President of the Social Work Student Union. As part of her social work education, Emily completed field placements at a grassroots domestic violence program in Brooklyn providing counseling and case management, and then as part of the policy team at Children’s Rights, a national watchdog organization advocating on behalf of abused and neglected children in the U.S. Emily also worked as a Research Assistant for faculty member Jane Waldfogel, a social economist whose research focuses on work-family policies, improving the measurement of poverty, and understanding social mobility across countries.

Upon graduating from Columbia, Emily was accepted to the highly competitive Presidential Management Fellows program and began working for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, D.C. As part of the two year fellowship, Emily completed a six month detail assignment with the United States House of Representatives as a Health Fellow for the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Health Subcommittee. During this experience, Emily met with stakeholders, organized Congressional briefings, and negotiated with other staffers on legislation related to the Health Subcommittee. For over ten years Emily has worked for the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation as the Performance Officer for her agency. In that role, Emily coordinates all materials related to the implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, execution of the annual performance budget request process, coordination of agency contributions to the Departmental Strategic Plan, and oversight of a number of additional ad hoc assignments.

Emily relocated to Hoboken in the fall of 2008 after getting engaged to her husband, Peter, who was born and raised in New Jersey. Emily continues to work remotely for ACF from the Region 2 Office in New York City. Peter and Emily were married in September 2009 and then bought their home in Hoboken’s third ward in 2010. In order to better get to know the larger Hoboken community, Emily began volunteering with True Mentors in 2011 as part of the afterschool program and then as a mentor. In August 2012, Emily and Peter’s first daughter Katherine was born at Hoboken Hospital, followed by their second daughter Brynn in March 2015. Emily and Peter are also proud parents of a French bulldog named Daisy.

Emily became more involved in the Hoboken community through the Brandt School when Katherine enrolled in the HOPES Pre-K program in Fall of 2015, volunteering with the PTO and attending Board of Education meetings. The following year, Emily began the HOPES Liaison as part of the PTO Board for Brandt (known as the Brandt Parents Consortium). Emily is also an active supporter of the Hoboken Public Education Foundation.

Upon learning that the Pre-K program required monthly active shooter drills, Emily reached out to the national organization Moms Demand Action to become more involved in advocacy efforts to support common sense gun reform in the U.S. Since Hudson County did not have a local chapter, Emily stepped up and offered to lead this effort. As a result of her advocacy, the Hoboken Police Department now distributes free gun locks with all permits issued. Emily has also been trained in the Be Smart curriculum, which was created to bring together responsible adults to reduce suicides and the number of unintentional shootings that occur when children get a hold of an unsecured firearm.